


The First of the Starks

by little0bird



Series: Spring Returning [2]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen, Tyrion and Sansa's First Child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2020-06-02 09:49:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19438966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little0bird/pseuds/little0bird
Summary: ‘Then she might marry someone who didn’t bring shame upon his entire family.  Who doesn’t remind her of one of the more difficult periods of her life.’ He paused, recalling with vivid clarity the mortification Sansa had felt at their wedding.  ‘Someone she chooses.  I was forced upon her.’  He ran the back of a finger over Joanna’s round cheek.  ‘I was blamed for many things that went wrong at Casterly Rock.  The cook’s son took sick and died. The Imp must have cursed him.  Jaime struggled to learn to read, it was clearly something I had done to take the Rock from him.  Rhaegar Targaryen refused to marry Cersei, and it was due to some evil enchantment I cast on him.’   He gave Brienne a mournful look. ‘I do not wish for my daughter to have that life. To have nearly everyone that lives here cast the blame for anything that goes wrong on her.’  He let out a long, slow breath, and his mouth crimped with the effort to suppress the shame and guilt. ‘I won’t go. I couldn’t… I doubt I could get very far before someone would discover us.’  Tyrion held his arms out for Joanna, so Brienne returned the baby to her father.





	1. Little

Sansa propped herself on her elbows. Tyrion sat on the settle in front of the hearth, staring into the glowing coals of the fire. He brooded quite often of late, but insisted he was perfectly well, thank you. Sansa knew better. Tyrion talked when he was well. He even talked when he was unwell. But as the swell of their child grew, he spoke less and less. She moved the furs aside and crossed the room, then lowered herself to the settle next to him. 'All is not well,' she stated.

Tyrion inhaled slowly. 'No.' He scooted closer to Sansa and laid a hand over her abdomen. He was soon rewarded with a vigorous kick against his palm. ‘What if…' he trailed off and folded his hands together. 'What if the child is… like.. is like… me?' he asked quietly.

'Kind? Thoughtful? Clever?' Sansa ventured. 

Tyrion gave her a heartrending look. 'Little,' he managed.

'I never...' Sansa stammered. 'It never occurred to me,' she admitted. She pushed herself to her feet and added a few sticks of wood to the fire. 'Your stature does not define you. It certainly is not the first thing that comes to mind when asked to describe you.' She stretched, arching her back, the silhouette of the advanced pregnancy visible under her bed gown. 'I've never considered that it might be a concern for you,' she said to her evident chagrin.

'I appreciate the attempt to put my mind at ease,' Tyrion told her. 'But I cannot believe it hasn't invaded your thoughts.'

'It truly hasn't.' Sansa returned to the settle and cupped Tyrion's face between her hands. 'Come back to bed.'

'It was always the first insult Cersei threw at me. Monster. Imp,' he mused. 'My own father wanted to throw me into the sea when I was born so I would drown and never be an embarrassment to the Lannister name.'

Sansa reached for one of Tyrion's hands and pressed it to her belly. 'If this child is little,' she began, 'it will have two parents who will love it. And that is all that matters.'

Tyrion tilted his head back to look Sansa in the eye. 'And if it kills you like I did my mother?'

‘You didn’t kill your mother,’ Sansa replied, more sharply than she’d intended. ‘It wasn’t as if you made a conscious decision as a newborn.' She bit her lip. Dying in childbirth was never far from her mind, despite her mother’s five successful pregnancies. Her aunt Lyanna had died giving birth to Jon. She’d been terrified Brienne would die, recalling the older woman’s bloodcurdling screams during her labors. ‘Women die in childbirth all the time. If I do, then our child will have a father who will love it and fight to the death to protect it.' Sansa lowered her forehead to rest against Tyrion's. 'Come back to bed,' she repeated. 

Tyrion slid off the settle and allowed her to lead him back to their bed. 'How can you not worry?'

Sansa climbed into the bed, and curled onto her side. 'There are things I can control and things I cannot. I choose to worry about the things I can control.' She closed her eyes. ‘I have no say over whether our child is a dwarf or not. I can control what I do if it is. That is what I worry about.’ 


	2. All the Hopes and Fears

Tyrion raced down the corridor as quickly as he could and stopped at the chamber given to Brienne and Jaime, panting from the exertion. He raised a fist and hammered on the door, not stopping until one of the chamber’s occupants yanked it open. ‘What?’ barked Jaime. ‘It’s the middle of the bloody night.’ He was clearly disgruntled. And completely naked.

Tyrion scowled and waved a hand in the general direction of Jaime’s thighs. ‘Could you put something on? I can’t think if your cock is staring at me.’

Jaime muttered a number of pungent curses under his breath and snatched up his roughspun trousers from where he’d draped them over the stool earlier. ‘What is it?’ he asked, stepping into them. He worked them over his hips and held them up with his hand, unable to properly fasten them without his hook.

‘It’s Sansa. The baby’s coming and she’s asking for Brienne.’

The bedding rustled and Brienne sprang into view, padding to the stool that held her own clothes, completely unconcerned with her own nudity and Tyrion’s presence in the chamber. ‘I’ll be just a moment,’ she said, voice muffled as she pulled her shirt over her head. 

Tyrion spun on a heel and stared at a spot on the wall. ‘Don’t either of you wear anything for sleep?’ he grumbled, face aflame with mortification. It was one thing to see Jaime in the nude. He hadn’t an ounce of shame when it came to his body. Even at his age. It was quite another to see one as prudish as Brienne without a stitch of clothing on. Even if he had once asked Jaime about her whilst in his cups.

‘Why?’ Jaime retorted. ‘It only slows down the climb,’ he added with a wink. He felt a savage pinch on his arse and yelped. Brienne glowered at him, but he gave her a cheeky grin. Her mouth twitched as she tugged her sheepskin boots on and nudged his hand aside, tying the laces of his trousers. 

‘May we go now?’ Tyrion said icily. He strode from the room, his spine stiff. Brienne followed him, choking back a laugh. 

‘How long has she been having pains?’ she asked.

‘Shortly after supper.’ Tyrion nearly broke into a run. ‘Quickly.’ He burst into the chamber he shared with Sansa.

Sansa stood at the foot of the bed, hands gripping the footboard, glaring at Maester Wolkan. ‘Get him out,’ she barked. ‘I don’t want him touching me…’ she added through clenched teeth. Sansa looked imploringly at Brienne. ‘Not _there.’_

Brienne needed no other explanation. On the long road between Winterfell and Castle Black, Sansa had haltingly revealed a fraction of what Ramsay Bolotn had done to her. She deftly turned Wolkan around and escorted him from the chamber. 

‘I don’t know what I’ve done,’ the maester murmured, wringing his hands together.

‘It has nothing to do with your skills, it’s only that you’re a man, Maester Wolkan,’ Brienne told him briskly. ‘Perhaps you would be so kind as to fetch the midwife from the winter town. Lady Stark would feel more comfortable with her.’ She firmly closed the door behind the befuddled maester. 

‘Thank you,’ Sansa breathed. She swayed from side to side, growling low in her throat. She pulled one hand off the footboard and blindly groped the air. Brienne took Sansa’s hand between her own. Sansa swiped her face over the sleeve of her bedgown. ‘I am ever so glad you’re here,’ she murmured. ‘I think I want to lie down.’ She clutched at Brienne’s arm and crawled onto the bed, then leaned against the pillows. Brienne gently brushed a lock of hair off Sansa’s sweaty forehead and tucked it back into her braid. Sansa leaned into the touch. ‘I miss my mother,’ Sansa told Brienne. ‘I wish she were here.’

Brienne reached for the cloth draped over the basin on the table next to the bed and wrung it out with one hand. She blotted Sansa’s face with it. ‘I felt the same about mine,’ she replied. ‘And I hardly knew her.’

‘And even if Arya were here, she wouldn’t be in this room at all,’ Sansa added ruefully. She took in a few deep breaths. ‘It must have been difficult for you to come all this way just to hold my hand.’

‘I swore I would always shield your back.’ Brienne tossed the cloth back into the basin. 

Sansa pressed her lips together and breathed heavily through her nose. ‘You’re more than that,’ she gasped. Brienne ducked her head and busied herself with straightening the bedding. 

Sansa groaned, and Tyrion looked around wildly from the corner he’s stationed himself in. ‘I should like to be of assistance. What can I do?’

‘Y’did your part nine months ago, m’lord,’ Eira snickered as she entered the chamber.

Brienne took pity on him. ‘Try distracting her,’ she advised. 

Tyrion nodded vigorously. ‘Right. I can do that.’ He clambered onto the bed next to Sansa, mentally groping for something to say, and then blurted the first thing that came to mind. ‘I once took a jackass and a honeycomb into a brothel,’ he declaimed.

‘Tyrion,’ Sansa grunted, her face close to his.

‘Yes?’ 

‘Shut. Up.’ Her eyes went wide and her hand clenched around Tyrion’s fingers, making him wince in pain.

Brienne’s hands dipped into the basin and she wrung out the cloth. ‘Have you ever managed to finish that story?’ she asked in genuine curiosity. He’d tried to tell it to Nikolas when he was just a few weeks old, but the baby had promptly spit up all over his uncle.

‘Not once,’ Tyrion admitted.

‘Perhaps you should find a different one,’ Sansa wheezed. 

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Sansa ran a finger over the sparse hair that sprinkled the baby’s head. It glittered in the sunlight streaming through the window. “She’s got my hair…’ 

Tyrion managed a smile and said, ‘She’s just as lovely as her mother.’

‘She’s perfect,’ Sansa declared. ‘What should we call her?’

Tyrion traced the baby’s snubbed nose, so like his own. ‘Joanna,’ he murmured. ‘It was my…’ His eyes stung, and he cleared his throat. ‘My mother’s name.’

Brienne slipped quietly from the chamber. Jaime sprawled in a chair in front of a fire, and stood when he saw her, stretching thoroughly. ‘You should stay,’ she told him. ‘He needs you.’

Jaime gazed at her face searchingly. ‘Has something gone wrong?’ His eyes flickered to the closed door behind her. 

Brienne’s mouth worked a few times. ‘No.’ she finally said, the corners of her mouth turned down in a pensive frown. ‘Sansa is well, and the baby seems healthy.’ She briefly touched his fingers with hers, then left Jaime alone in the antechamber. He didn’t have to wonder much longer. Tyrion emerged from the room his face a stiff mask Jaime knew well. He put a hand on Tyrion’s tense shoulder and silently steered him to the armory. Tyrion blinked in confusion. ‘Why are we here? I’m nobody’s idea of a fighter.’

‘You need to hit something,’ Jaime supplied helpfully. 

‘I beg your pardon?’

Jaime strolled around the room and selected one of the smaller sparring swords they used to train squires at Winterfell, and then shoved it into Tyrion’s hand. ‘You need to hit something.’ He turned Tyrion toward one of the pells. ‘Hit that.’

Tyrion shifted his grip on the hilt. ‘For low long?’

‘Until you can no longer hit it. Or no longer feel the urge to.’

Tyrion raised the sword and brought it down on the pell as hard as he could. Jaime leaned against the wall, crossed his arms over his chest, and looked down at the toes of his boots, listening to the dull _thuds_ as the sword smacked into the straw-stuffed pell. Some time passed before Tyrion let the sword fall from his hand, wheezing for air. ‘The consequences of my actions have finally caught up with me,’ he muttered. 

‘What are you talking about?’

Tyrion’s mouth thinned. ‘My daughter is a dwarf.’ He began to laugh, but there was no humor in it. ‘The gods have finally punished me for my sins.’

‘Do you honestly believe the gods punish innocent children for their parents’ misdeeds?’

‘You don’t?’ Tyrion shot back with a knowing look.

Jaime felt as Tyrion had punched him in the stomach. ‘Who says the gods were punishing me?’

‘Tommen and Myrcella were yours, too.’

Jaime’s hand clenched. ‘And _hers._ ’ He sat on a bale of hay, elbows resting on his knees. ‘And she did far more than I ever did.’ He let out a long, slow breath. ‘And I still don’t believe the gods rain down punishment on our children for our misdeeds.’ He stretched out his feet in front of him. ‘If that were the case, then Nikolas would have shriveled and died in the womb.’ He jerked his head toward the space next to him in invitation. 

Tyrion slumped on the hay bale in a dejected heap. ‘Do you really think the gods would punish someone as principled as your…’ He trailed off and turned to look at his brother, a bemused frown on his face. ‘Is she your wife? Are you even actually legally married?’

Jaime fiddled with a buckle on his hook. ‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say we’re married. More like each other’s sworn swords…’ He shrugged. ‘Selwyn Tarth regards us as so, informal as it may be.’

Tyrion didn’t bother to hide his grimace. ‘The two of you make me want to vomit,’ he said darkly.

Jaime nudged his brother. ‘A daughter, you said?’ he prompted, deliberately changing the subject from his unorthodox marriage.

‘Joanna.’ Tyrion picked at a loose thread on the knee of his trousers. ‘Do you think our mother would mind very much that I’ve named my daughter for her?’

Jaime shook his head. ‘No, of course not.’


	3. Going Hunting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘Then she might marry someone who didn’t bring shame upon his entire family. Who doesn’t remind her of one of the more difficult periods of her life.’ He paused, recalling with vivid clarity the mortification Sansa had felt at their wedding. ‘Someone she chooses. I was forced upon her.’ He ran the back of a finger over Joanna’s round cheek. ‘I was blamed for many things that went wrong at Casterly Rock. The cook’s son took sick and died. The Imp must have cursed him. Jaime struggled to learn to read, it was clearly something I had done to take the Rock from him. Rhaegar Targaryen refused to marry Cersei, and it was due to some evil enchantment I cast on him.’ He gave Brienne a mournful look. ‘I do not wish for my daughter to have that life. To have nearly everyone that lives here cast the blame for anything that goes wrong on her.’ He let out a long, slow breath, and his mouth crimped with the effort to suppress the shame and guilt. ‘I won’t go. I couldn’t… I doubt I could get very far before someone would discover us.’ Tyrion held his arms out for Joanna, so Brienne returned the baby to her father.

Brienne flung the privy door open just before she began heaving. There wasn’t much. There never was. It was always more sound and fury than substance. Still, it was a wearisome routine, and she tried to remember how she’d felt when she carried Nikolas, but those first few months had been a blur of grief alternating with seething rage. Try as she might, Brienne couldn’t recall if vomiting had been one of the symptoms she’d ignored or explained away until she could no longer do so.

She leaned against the wall, waiting for her knees to stop trembling and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, making a face at the acrid taste in the back of her mouth. A heavy door halfway down the corridor opened just enough for Tyion to poke his head into the corridor. He silently gestured for her to come inside. She padded into the antechamber of the chamber he shared with Sansa. He held out a steaming cup with a knowing look on his face. Brienne took it, sniffing cautiously. Things she had been able to eat or drink the day before suddenly made her stomach turn. ‘It’s only mint tea,’ Tyrion murmured, peering into the basket where Joanna slept. Brienne blew on the surface of the liquid to cool it enough to take a swallow. She swished it around her mouth to try and rid herself of the lingering sourness, then spat into the fireplace. Joanna stirred, making a tiny mewling sound. Tyrion scooped her up from the basket, gently patting her well-padded bottom, rocking the baby from side to side. Joanna yawned, smacking her rosebud lips, blinking up at Tyrion, then her eyelids drooped and she slept once more. 

Tyrion glanced at Brienne, standing in front of the fire. ‘Are you going to tell Jaime?’ he asked quietly so as not to disturb Joanna.

‘Tell him what?’ Brienne pretended to be greatly interested in the contents of her cup.

‘That you’re pregnant.’ Brienne looked at Tyrion sharply, but he only gazed at her expectantly in return. ‘I’m no maester, but every morning, you run as quietly as you can down this corridor.’ He gestured to the window with his chin, where pale light streaked the horizon. ‘At roughly the same time. And you proceed to vomit.’ He managed to shift the baby to one arm, then retrieved his own cup and took a sip, gazing at Brienne over the rim. ‘How far gone are you?’

Brienne set the cup on the mantle and fiddled with the laces of her shirt. She hadn’t bled in nearly two months. After what had happened the previous year, she hadn’t quite managed to admit to herself she was pregnant. Her habitual ambivalence about having children had intensified even more this time. She felt as if she was waiting for the worst to happen once more. ‘That is none of your concern.’ 

Tyrion merely shrugged. ‘All right.’ 

Brienne picked up her cup and cradled it between her palms. She folded herself into the settle next to Tyrion. ‘I…’ She forcefully blew out a breath. ‘A few months after Nikolas’ first name day… I…’ She swallowed. Even after a year, it was difficult to simply say the word. ‘Miscarried,’ she mumbled. It still caught in her throat, choking her with the sense of failure. She turned her head to the side, nostrils flaring with the effort to keep the tears at bay. ‘Jaime doesn’t know about it.’ 

‘Why not?’ Tyrion kept his eyes firmly on Joanna, tactfully giving Brienne a moment to collect herself. 

‘It was much too soon to say anything, so I hadn’t told him I thought I might be…’ She cleared her throat and sipped her tea. ‘Afterward, I kept hearing the voice of the septa who tried to educate me in the ways of women. She would give me endless lectures that I had a single purpose on this earth -- to bear sons and daughters for my eventual husband.’ She slumped against the back of the settle. ‘I’ve failed on both counts.’

Tyrion’s head tilted to the side. ‘Then how do you explain the presence of Jaime and Nikolas?’

Brienne nudged him with an elbow. ‘You know as well as I that Jaime and I are not married. Not in any way that would be recognized by most people.’ She sighed. ‘And only the one child.’ She gave Tyrion a wan smile. ‘Who just happens to be a boy, so I have at least managed to do one thing right in her eyes, were she alive to give me her approval.’

‘How long has this septa been dead?’

‘Oh…’ Brienne paused to count. ‘She died right after my sixteenth name day…’

‘And you’re how old?’

‘Nearly thirty-six.’

‘So a woman who has been dead for twenty years, still holds sway over you to the point where you feel like a failure because of something you could not control?’

‘It sounds silly when you put it like that,’ Brienne admitted. ‘But she was the guiding force of my childhood. Especially after my mother died.’ She eyed Tyrion. ‘Can you tell me honestly that the things your father said and did to you do not still intrude into your thoughts?’

‘I would be lying if I said they did not.’ He fumbled for his cup, nearly dropping the baby. Brienne held out her arms. Tyrion tugged the tiny knitted cap further down over Joanna’s head, before carefully giving the baby to Brienne. ‘I must confess, in my darker moments, I have considered taking Joanna and going hunting.’

‘You don’t hunt,’ Brienne pointed out.

‘It’s a Northern phrase,’ Tyrion said quietly. ‘When the winters lasted for years and resources ran low, older members of the family would express a desire to go hunting and leave, never to return. Sacrificing themselves so others might have a chance to survive.’

Brienne’s arms tightened around Joanna, who slept peacefully, oblivious to her father’s musings. Knowing how the world viewed dwarves, especially in some of the more superstitious regions of Westeros, she could understand why this particular solution crept into Tyrion’s thoughts. ‘But Sansa,’ she began, still ready to protect her.

‘Oh… she might mourn me for a while. Not too long, I hope,’ Tyrion said laconically. ‘Then she might marry someone who didn’t bring shame upon his entire family. Who doesn’t remind her of one of the more difficult periods of her life.’ He paused, recalling with vivid clarity the mortification Sansa had felt at their wedding. ‘Someone she  _ chooses. _ I was forced upon her.’ He ran the back of a finger over Joanna’s round cheek. ‘I was blamed for many things that went wrong at Casterly Rock. The cook’s son took sick and died. The Imp must have cursed him. Jaime struggled to learn to read, it was clearly something I had done to take the Rock from him. Rhaegar Targaryen refused to marry Cersei, and it was due to some evil enchantment I cast on him.’ He gave Brienne a mournful look. ‘I do not wish for my daughter to have that life. To have nearly everyone that lives here cast the blame for anything that goes wrong on her.’ He let out a long, slow breath, and his mouth crimped with the effort to suppress the shame and guilt. ‘I won’t go. I couldn’t… I doubt I could get very far before someone would discover us.’ Tyrion held his arms out for Joanna, so Brienne returned the baby to her father. ‘I know you and Jaime have few secrets between the two of you, but I beg of you, please don’t reveal any of this to Sansa.’

* * *

‘Neither Sansa, nor Tyrion are anything like Tywin Lannister, so I don’t understand why he’s still so upset by this,’ Jaime mused as he tramped a path through the snow to what had once been their clearing in the Wolfswood.

‘Of course you don’t,’ Brienne sighed. ‘You’re  _ you. _ ’

‘What does that mean?’

‘The worst thing anyone ever said about you was that you fucked Tyrion’s sister,’ she stated flatly, giving Jaime a pointed glance.

‘Oh, they said worse, but do carry on.’

‘You’re Jaime-Bloody-Lannister. The Golden Lion. Or you were. When you were still known as Jaime Lannister, you could have taken a piss and managed to not dribble around the chamber pot, and people would hold a tourney in your honor to celebrate.’

‘Now you’re exaggerating,’ Jaime countered. ‘That was only when I first learned to use a chamber pot. Nobody held a tourney to celebrate me after I was three. Possibly four. Although there was the one when I was five and stopped pissing the bed while I slept.’ His teeth flashed white in the dim greenish light under the sentinels.

Brienne sent him a quelling look as she dumped a canvas sack on the ground. ‘See? You don’t know what it feels like to live outside what the world says is acceptable. Even when you lost your hand, you still had your position in the Kingsguard. Had you wanted it, Casterly Rock would have been yours for the taking. It’s not acceptable for a woman to be taller than most men. Or prefer to wear trousers or breeches. Or to fight. Or to want to be a knight. To not fit what everyone else’s idea of what a woman should look like.’

‘It’s not like that everywhere--,’ Jaime ventured, but Brienne cut him off. ‘Or be born a dwarf,’ she added, nearly shouting. ‘And we live in Westeros where it does matter,’ she snapped, horrified to feel tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. ‘You love your brother and you don’t see anything wrong with him. But you  _ know _ how other people view him. You  _ know _ your father wanted to kill him as an infant. Both your father and sister tried to kill him when he was an adult. More than once. Or have you forgotten your father stood by and did nothing while Tyrion stood accused of a murder he did not commit?’ 

Jaime’s mouth tightened and he shook his head. 'I have not.'  


‘You  _ know _ people have blamed him for every misfortune that has happened to your family since his birth. As if being born a dwarf imbued him with dark magical powers,’ she snorted. ‘And yes, both of Joanna’s parents do love her, regardless of what happens, but the rest of the world won’t. And it pains Tyrion to know what will await her.’ She gave Jaime a pitying look. ‘Surely you can understand that.’

‘Of course I do.’

Brienne tossed Jaime a wooden sword from the sack. ‘Then why do you find it so difficult to grasp that he feels it might be better for everyone involved if he were to…’ Brienne shifted her grip on the wooden sword in her hand. She groped for words to use that would cause Jaime the least amount of distress. ‘Go hunting…’

‘He doesn’t hunt.’

‘In the Northern sense,’ Brienne supplied.

‘The Northern…’ Jaime frowned, as he dredged the meaning of the phrase from his memories. ‘Oh. So he’d just walk out into the night with his child in his arms and hope nobody finds him before the cold kills them? Or a wolf? Or gods only know what’s in these godsforsaken woods!’

Brienne set the blunted point of the wooden sword on the ground, hands wrapped around the hilt. ‘I don’t think he would actually do it.’

Jaime gave her a look full of hurt and confusion before he threw the wooden sword to the mossy forest floor. He stalked back to Winterfell and searched for Tyrion, becoming increasingly agitated until he found Tyrion in the library, discussing the next round of vegetables to be planted in the glass houses with the maester. ‘Would you excuse us?’ Jaime ground out, managing to throttle his voice down to a low roar. Maester Wolkan exited the room with a short bow, leaving Jaime alone with his brother. ‘Why would you think anyone’s life would be better if you were no longer here?’

Tyrion gathered the pile of paper into a neat stack. ‘So she told you.’ In a way, he was relieved Brienne had told Jaime. He didn’t think he could have said the words if initially confronted with Jaime’s righteous fury.

‘Of course she told me!’ Jaime’s eyes were wide, hair disheveled. ‘Would it make a difference to you if at least one person’s life was made better merely by having you in it?’

‘But it can’t be yours,’ Tyrion objected.

‘The first one is mine!’ Jaime roared, on the verge of tears, completely disregarding Tyrion’s admonishments. ‘I wouldn’t be alive if not for you!’ He roughly rubbed his hand under his nose. ‘I got a second chance to live because of you! I have my family because of you! If not for you, I would be on the Wall, freezing my cock off.’

‘Can’t have that,’ Tyrion murmured, rolling his eyes. 

‘Nikolas is Brienne’s legitimate heir. Because of you.’

‘It would have occured to Sansa to ask Jon,’ Tyrion pointed out sensibly.

‘But it didn’t,’ Jaime huffed. ‘Speaking of Sansa… You protected her from Joffery’s worst impulses in King’s Landing.’

‘But I couldn’t protect her from our father’s.’ Tyrion was still haunted by the unhinged glee from Joffery and smug satisfaction of Tywin after the Red Wedding.

‘Podrick. Podrick is alive because of you. Because while you were awaiting certain death, you remembered to help find a way for him to leave the city and out of harm’s way.’

‘I’m sure he would have managed to hide himself somewhere.’

‘From Cersei?’ Jaime yanked out a chair and sat down. He scratched his nose with the tip of his hook. ‘From the woman who knew you and I met in secret in the crypts under the Red Keep?’ Jaime pulled the edges of his cloak around his body. ‘I would never have thought to give him to Brienne as a squire if you hadn’t mentioned it.’

‘You’re not nearly as stupid as you’re making yourself out to be,’ Tyrion told Jaime. He once again cursed the memory of Tywin Lannister for making all of his children feel so inadequate they believed they were beyond hope.

‘And you’re not as useless as you think.’ Jaime leaned forward. ‘Whatever happened to wearing insults like armor?’

‘You’re a father. How would you feel if people called Nikolas stupid because he struggled to read, hmmm?’ Jamie could only sit back, his mouth agape. ‘Exactly,’ Tyrion said. ‘I can weather all manner of insults, because I’ve spent my life doing so. It’s one thing for people to sling insults and ill wishes in my direction. I don’t know if I can survive if it they do it to my daughter.’


End file.
